Garth Brooks loses his songs for upcoming studio album

Garth Brooks has lost all of the new material he’s been working on for his next studio album.

The iconic entertainer has been working on songs for an album that he tentatively planned to release next year, but that recently took an unfortunate turn. “Here’s where the old guy gets into technology, which is bad,” Brooks tells the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “All the new stuff which I’ve been working on for six months is on a phone that I fried, and I can’t get the phone to come back up.”

Brooks admits it’s a hard lesson to learn.

“I know I should have backed it up,” he says ruefully. “It’s like losing your briefcase back in the ’90s.”

There’s still some hope for the material not to be lost. “I’m still working on that phone,” Brooks adds. “We’ll get it.”

More On This...

Brooks’ wife, Trisha Yearwood, tells the Journal Sentinel that the couple’s Christmas duets album is also not finished, and probably won’t see release until next Christmas.

The couple have been on the road on Brooks’ comeback world tour, which has been playing multiple nights in many markets. Brooks recently earned the top spot of any country artist on Forbes’ list of the top-earning celebrities, while Pollstar crowned him the top touring country artist for the first half of 2015.